Dream
by Kaiseress
Summary: Asuka visits Ryo in the hospital after he collapses at a tournament. The Queen of Obelisk thinks about how much her old friend had changed, and how the others seem to have given up on helping him. Royalshipping if you want to look at it that way.


I decided to write a Royalshipping (sort of, more Royals friendship) fic because I don't want people thinking "She's just a rabid fangirl with WAY too many OC fics." Which I am, but that's not _all_ I am… It is inspired by and loosely attached to Ryo's little freakout in episode 131.

Summary: Asuka visits Ryo in the hospital after he collapses after a duel. The former Queen of Obelisk thinks about how much her old friend has changed, and how the others seem to have given up on helping him.

Warning: very mild language

Dream 

"Excuse me, where is Ryo's room?" Asuka asks quietly, feeling a bit out of place in the hospital.

"Do you know him?" the woman behind the desk asks her. "And I don't mean know _about_ him, I mean, would he know _you_ if he saw you. I've turned away about five hundred people trying to get in to see him with flowers and other ridiculous things."

"Yes, I know him. Or I _did_." The younger Tenjoin says that sentence too softly to hear. "I was his classmate at Duel Academy. Asuka Tenjoin."

"Oh, Tenjoin-san, I'm sorry. He has room number 307; it's on the third floor, fourth door on the left. He's probably still out, though."

Asuka bites her lip. Ryo collapsed nearly three hours ago; she expected him to be awake, at least by now. She turns away from the desk and walks toward the elevator.

"Who are you visiting?" the other inhabitant of the elevator, a thin, middle-aged woman, asks. "A friend, family, lover?" Asuka starts at the last guess.

"No, an old friend, I suppose," she says. "You? Or would you prefer not to say?" She hopes it's the latter. She feels uncomfortable talking about this.

"My son," the woman tells her briefly. "Which floor do you need?"

"Third."

"Well I hope this friend of yours feels better soon."

"Same to you about your son," Asuka says. The woman smiles a bit sadly and steps out of the elevator on the second floor. The younger woman rides the rest of the way alone.

_Ryo. Why did you do that? The Underground was beyond stupid, and I know the Hell Duels are what's doing this to you. First those rumors, and now this? I wonder, did you have any idea how much pain this would cause us; would cause you yourself? I know I've been wondering this for five years, but I've never _really_ seen why you would do that_, Asuka thinks. _Fourth door on the left…there it is_. She steps into the room.

Ryo is still unconscious; the same condition was in when he was carried out of the stadium. An official called an ambulance after revival attempts proved futile.

Asuka sits down on the visitor's chair and pulls it up next to the bed. She feels a bit useless. No doubt he will either not recognize her or even threaten her if he wakes up, but at this moment that will be welcome, second only to his being the Ryo she used to know when he comes to.

"_I don't see why you're bothering, Asuka_," Fubuki said. "_Ryo's not gonna be who you want him to be. If anything, he'll just get you more upset if you visit him. Look, we've all tried; I tried, Sho tried, hell, even Judai tried and failed to bring back the Ryo we knew_." Maybe he's right; maybe it is pointless to visit someone who is to you only the fading echo of a lost dream.

"_Asuka-san, it's over. There's no one else left to try. He's destroyed all of us at one time or another. That isn't going to change overnight. He didn't care who we were or had been to him at one time or another; he only wanted victory, and he got it. We don't have a choice; it's over, I'm done chasing an echo of my brother_." Sho's words of wisdom; one of the only times that the younger Marufuji brother seemed gifted with eloquence. He too has cut the ties between Ryo and himself. The knife's edge, for him, has dulled. Perhaps Sho is right; after all, what bond is harder to break than a brother's? Even that tie is broken, so why can Asuka not sever even the simple bond of a friendship created by her brother's disappearance?

That is all she has ever had for Ryo; a friendship, love as toward a brother. She has thought of him as someone to confide in, someone who gives her a center and a way to define herself. He was someone who she could laugh and cry around without the awkwardness that she feels around others. She laughed when he acted out of character. She defended him against comical threats, like his young stalker in his third year. She grieved for him when he fell to the Shadow Rider Camilla.

And she was in shock for months after he changed the way he did.

To her, it seems like the worst way to try to regain a shattered dream; instead it shattered his heart, and the soul was changed from the one pure as new snow to a heart blackened as charcoal. From broken and dying to another way of both. His broken soul pieced together wrong, still rough, imperfect and fragmented, and now this.

Asuka knows he's dying, that the Hell Duels in the Underground have finally caught up to him and are taking their toll. And somewhere deep down, she supposes she knows that he's not coming back like some beautiful fairy tale, that he will never come and find her and sweep her up and smile that beautiful half-smile of his.

But it never killed anyone to dream.

Or at least, her dreams haven't killed her yet.

Ryo is gone, but Asuka still hopes, and clings to the dreams where he is a comfort, a shoulder to cry on and a friend to dry her tears. The thing is that he is what she cries about; the one who once would have dried her anguished tears now causes them.

But she still believes that if the others hadn't given up, if she doesn't give up, there is a chance that the Ryo she knew can be found within the dark, empty shell that is Hell Kaiser.

As long as Asuka keeps believing that dream, she keeps herself from falling apart.

Fin

Whoa, I wrote angst again. Am I okay at that? Review please. And tell me if you want this to have either continuation or a companion fic; I think I could write more of this. Maybe. It might not happen; I'm really busy with my other stuff.


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